The King is Still Dead Long Live the Loot...errr, What?

So with the pretty much everything easy on regular or hard mode (except 25 Putricide and Sind and the king himself on heroic) and Lich King a farm boss now a couple of things have happened.

First, certain people, who shall remain nameless (*cough* Huhs *cough*) have decided that there is no better fun in raid than to BoP the tank when she pulls large packs of mobs. Good times. WTB chain MDs to the ret pally pst with price.

This also frees up the option of selling the Kingslayer title. Let’s see…25k divided by 10 or 25…. With of course a nice chunk for the gbank.

It also means the alts are getting a LOT of love. My little druid hit 80 last week and, spoiled baby that she is, had some lovely presents waiting for her. Then in our Friday casual/alt run we were very short healers so I brought her in. I had no intention of bringing her in until she was at least out of all her blues but some heals are better than none. Can I just say, OMG druids are OP! She held her own. (Of course a couple of lucky drops and the 18k Lark poured into her gear didn’t hurt!)


On another note, we have some dissention in the Friday run too that we need to deal with. Loot, of course. Does anything cause bigger headaches than shiny purple pixels?

Here’s the thing, it would be impossible to run it without alts and most of the mains will seldom be brought into the main run so what do you do about gear? Mains over alts is pretty standard BUT if you can’t do it without the alts then doesn’t that make them as important as mains for that run? We are in danger of losing several alts if the run gives them nothing but scraps and if that happens then no one gets loot - not mains, not alt…no one. Unless of course they want to PUG it but that will be a real crap shoot for loot and few PUGs get past the first 6 bosses.

So, what’s a GM to do?

Buy Q-Tips

Dear Guildies,


Clearly that is a gap between what I am saying and what you are hearing. I’m unclear where the misunderstanding lies…I don’t have an accent, I don’t stutter, my mic works, the officers hear me very well and you do too when it’s time for loot.

When I state very clearly at the beginning of raid that we are working on progression fights and will be basing the raid group on what we think is the best combination of specs, skill, raid awareness and experience this is NOT your cue to whisper me to tell me what loot you need and why you should be in on the off chance it drops. This is NOT your cue to whisper me and tell me that Bertha wants in and you’re happy to sit for her even though Bertha is not half the player you are and has not earned the spot. This is NOT your cue to tell me that you’d really like to DPS instead of heal because you’ve dying to see what you can do on this boss. During progression I don’t care what you need or want from a boss or care about stroking your fragile little ego. I care about one thing: Dead Boss.

When I repeat multiple times during your interview - MULTIPLE TIMES - that recruiting is closed for the main Tues/Wed 25, you WILL NOT be in it, you will ONLY be considered for the Friday casual/alt run and then ask you if that interests you, make you sleep on it, repeat said conditions again the next day how does it happen that you ask me on Tuesday if you will be in raid tonight? Short of coming to your house, dragging you out and down the street to the tattoo parlor and having them engrave it on your forearm I don’t really understand how I could be clearer.

When I say in gchat, vent and the message of the day that we will either be doing RS25 or ICC 10s on Thursday why do you whisper me asking what we are doing on Thursday? Does no one read the MOD? Or Gchat? Or listen in vent? This is almost as bad as when we start our main ICC 25 which has the same people by and large every week, put the tanks in group one where they always are, mark them as tanks in the raid frames and you ask me who the tanks are. /facepalm

Check the batteries in your hearing aids, turn down the Eminem, pay attention.


Much love,


Your Annoyed GM

Rambling Updates

So here’s where we are this week. Go ahead, grab a drink, sit back, and marvel at the weirdness.

Sanity has (mostly) returned and the 2nd 25 man has been officially deemed a casual/alt run. Yes, mains will still have priority on main spec gear but (BUT!) only if they show up consistently. Yup, that’s right. If you’re one of those who shows up one night out of three you’ll be rolling against yet one more unnecessary DK alt for those tanking legs because they are here all the time and you aren’t. Deal with it. We’ve also reduced it to one official night. I’m not pulling teeth to pull together a Monday run anymore. If people want to raid and show up we will otherwise go in Scarlet Monastery. In all honesty I think it’s pretty much dead so, meh, more free time.

The main group is still going strong. We cleared ICC 25 with 8 hard modes plus Ruby Sanctum in two nights. My fond hope is that we can spend some time on more new hard modes this week. This leads to part of the…ummm…interesting situation this week which is incorporating more of the formerly group two raiders into the main group. Subbing in and out slows things down - which sucks - but hopefully we can make it fast. The bigger trouble is that the new hard modes (and some of the ones we can’t quite consider farm yet) are spread out throughout the instance so it’s not like we can sub in based on wing. We need who we need for the new stuff. Also, there are some conversations to be had that I’m not really looking forward to. Everyone thinks they are good enough for the progression fights but, frankly, if you’ve shown up on the Stupid Awards lately for performance issues…well…not so much.

The biggest thorn in my side right now is dissention in the ranks. There is still somewhat of a lingering feeling of Us and Them in regards to folks from the guild that merged with us. Everyone needs to make compromises to have this be successful long term and change is not always a bad thing. Some of the raiders that have been with us a while are grumbling about the new folks not being quite as…diplomatic and gentle as we were in the past. To which I say, Bullshit. There is nothing that has been said in a raid that I did not say myself when the Raid Bitch came out to play…I think they are just slightly resentful to hear it from new officers and not me. I’m afraid they’re going to have to deal with it and adapt. Progression for 25 people trumps the thin-skin of one or two. There have also been complaints about the content of conversations in gchat. Particularly those filled with sexual innuendo or - in one certain warlock’s case - the RPing of homo-erotic fantasies. (Seriously, it’s actually quite funny how well thought out they are!) All I can say is there is /ignore for a reason and this has always been an adult guild filled with raunchy humor. The new folks didn’t start it. It was here before. Let’s move on.

Part of the desire to nail down a few more hard modes is another part of the weirdness of the week. Due to the collapse of the number one guild on the server…we are, by default, number….one. Wow. Just wow. I want to get more hard modes though so it feels earned rather than defaulted. We are only three behind where the former first guild was so it should be do-able. /fingerscrossed

On a happy note my little druid hit 80 last night! She is soooo spoiled it’s not funny. We had 264 BOE shoulders and a belt sitting in the gbank that no one wanted and she stepped right into those with 264 crafted legs and boots. Add a few crafted 245s and she’s not looking too bad. All it cost was Mama Lark parting with 10k to the gbank.

For a complete change of subject, I like add-ons. I don’t just want the basics you absolutely have to have either. I want the best. I want the one that does buffs, the one that communicates BQ’s bite order, and the one that changes my screen so most of my add-ons don’t sit on top of the game. Add-ons, to me, are tools; I am not using two sticks to start a fire if I have a Zippo available to me. I’m really annoyed by the “purists” who say people who use add-ons are as good. If I could find an add-on that would do laundry my life would be complete.

Stupid Awards of the Week

The Sacrificial Lamb Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who repeatedly (yes, repeatedly) ran TOWARDS the orange ooze on Putricide. We did not down any bosses that night unless he died in the first minute. Seriously.


The Amnesia Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The resto druid who, when asked to go Boomkin, says on any fight - including Faction Champs - that she has healed over and over and over again, “I’ve never DSPed this fight…now what do I do?” I can see maybe (MAYBE) having a question if you go from say priest to rogue on Sindragosa but really unless you have amnesia you ought to be able to do farm content when going from heals to caster. /facepalm


The You Hurt My Epeen Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The Mage that got demoted to Special Snowflake for trying to kill the raid group - yes, on purpose, with forethought - and then had a temper tantrum about his rank and refused to raid until it was “fixed”. There’s a reason you were a Special Snowflake and you just made it more appropriate. /golfclap



The Gullible Isn’t in the Dictionary Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The pally who was told that to leave an arena team you typed: /gquit 2v2. And he did. He is also a Special Snowflake.

Stupid Awards of the Week

The Story Time Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

A warrior, a tree, and a ret pally who seem to be incapable of sneaking off to pee or grab a drink or whatever it was without spending an additional two minutes prior to the actual AFK to tell us in great detail why they must step away. I don’t care! Just go! You could have been back in the time it took you to explain why you needed to go!


The Magellan Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The ret pally who asked for a summons back to ICC after a wipe. He was in Dalaran. No, he didn’t hearth. He…took…the…wrong…portal…. Wait. What?! How do you take the wrong portal and wind up in Dal instead of the Upper Spire…? They’re not even close…how do you…but…wait, what….!? /headdesk


The Ass-fire is Bad? Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The kitty that sat in melee with purple fire coming out of his ass and then ran through as many of the healers as possible. Not once, not twice, but every freaking time he got it. All I can figure he was mesmerized by BQ’s fangs.


The BQ’s Bitch Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The hunter who got mind controlled every single solitary time he was due to bite someone. Every time. Every single time on Friday. And then Monday, learned to use shift+V. Voila! Success! /facepalm


The You Clearly Didn’t Want it That Bad Award of the week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who linked for an item a good 4 minutes after the loot had been decided. His excuse? He was dead. Cause you can’t see raid chat when you’re dead…?

Sanity Check, Please?

As I mentioned not long ago we started a second 25 man ICC 25. Okay, the thought process behind starting a second 25 man group went something like this:

We merge with another guild that brings 12 new raiders over - mostly extremely competent, well-geared, experienced raiders.

This means that we now have 12 of our established raiders with no raid spots - about half of whom are solid and half of whom don’t belong in progression as much as I may like them.

So, do we sub in and out in raids to a ridiculous degree slowing everything down? Neglect the raiders and see them leave (and trust me, there’s no where good for them to go on this server)? Or do we start a second 25 man team to give them a place to work on gear, skill up and potentially earn a spot in the main run? You guessed it. We started the second 25.

So then, we run the second 25 with about 16 mains and the rest alts. We get another 9 people from another server for that group so - theoretically - we have 25 mains to run. Theoretically. Because you know what happens right….? That’s right, real life stuff and D/Cs happen so back in come the alts.

Now the folks that play the alts don’t want to run in the second 25 and want their own 25 man alt run because in the second 25 mains get priority for gear (I know, duh, right?).

So here we are on the third week of doing the second 25 and it’s an hour before invites go out. I have 23 mains accepted on the calendar, a bunch that chose tentative and the lazy bastards who can’t be bothered to look at the calendar and let us know what they are doing. And I’m wondering who is going to show up.

Seriously, what was I thinking?!?!?!